1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to a computer network monitoring systems and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus for monitoring sensitive data on a computer network.
2. Description of the Related Art
Because of the rapid development and progression of data networks, people spend a significant amount of time browsing web sites on the Internet and connecting to various computer networks and database systems. In particular, children spend a considerable amount of time viewing and/or posting material on social networking web sites (e.g., FACEBOOK, MYSPACE, WEBKINZ and the like), blogs, chat forums and other publicly accessible web sites. The material may be in the form of a profile (e.g., MYSPACE profile), comments (e.g., public comments on other MYSPACE user profiles, comments in a discussion thread, bulletin board or blog), chat room discussions, incoming/outgoing messages/email and other postings (e.g., blog or bulletin board posts).
While browsing, children (especially teenagers) may accidently or knowingly post sensitive data (e.g., credit card numbers, phone numbers, addresses, and one or more pieces of personal information deemed sensitive by the parents) on one or more publicly accessible websites. As a result, the sensitive data is accessible by anyone who can connect to Internet. The malicious use of sensitive data disclosed on the internet is subject matter of significant concern in today's society. In particular, the parents of the children desire more control over what material is being posted on publicly accessible websites to protect or limit sensitive data from being disclosed on the internet. Parents are concerned because children are likely to make poor decisions regarding whether to post material that includes sensitive data.
According to one prevalent method available to parents, sensitive data is identified using the child's real name and/or email address. But the child may use a secret email address or a fake real name on one or more web sites. Moreover, the current solution is only able to search a selected number of web sites (e.g., MYSPACE but not FACEBOOK). Furthermore, such a solution only alerts the parents as to a disclosure of sensitive data and is incapable of removing the sensitive data automatically or upon request by the parents.
According to another prevalent method, a software program installed on a particular computer is configured to prevent sensitive data from leaving the particular computer, but the software program cannot prevent the leakage of sensitive data from other computers. A child may access the Internet from one or more computers outside the control of the parents (e.g. a school computer, a friend's computer, a library computer, a internet café and the like).
Therefore, there is a need in the art for a method and apparatus for monitoring sensitive data on a computer network to protect the sensitive data from disclosure.